If I had to describe Brian Tracy in one word, it would be professional. Actually I really can’t do him justice by using just one word, as during my interaction with him, I have never felt so respected by someone so much higher than me on the food chain. He is a great example of practicing what he preaches – professional, disciplined, entertaining and genuine.

I try to read a book most weeks (I get about 40 a year), but even if I did meet my target, I wouldn’t get through Brian Tracy’s in a year. He is an amazing expert in business and leadership, but also an innovator in education. His office is lined with books, training manuals, audio programs and videos. The formats go back to cassette tapes and VHS – of course a novelty to a Gen Y like myself. Brian Tracy was doing what, with technology is easy now, back when it was hard.

Brian is unarguably successful, and with 4 books published a year along with his training programs and courses, some may think, as a master salesman, he likes to have more product out there to sell. When you meet Brian, see him speak or as my first interaction with him was – through my iPod, you know this genuinely isn’t so. Brian believes everyone can be successful; everyone can achieve their goals; and everyone can meet their potential whether in both life and business. From our interaction, interview and discussion before and after our interview I believe that Brian wants people to engage in his programs for their gain, and his own is just a by-product of this.

I was impressed that Brian had read my long email to his team about the purpose of my visit and interview. He had thought out how his advice could best suit our audience of health professionals and everything he answered was related back to our industry.

The only difficulty in interviewing Brian was that I really could have spoken to him all day, his knowledge and experience is as wide spread and deep as the Great Barrier Reef. The deeper you go, the more interesting and fun. He made me think about the difference to the world we as health professionals could make if we changed some small things and had me reflecting on what I need to do differently. His energy makes you believe that anything is possible. I know health professionals will benefit from our interview and by reading any of his books. We spoke about so many topics from how to set and achieve our goals; where to look for help; increasing our business success; improving our productivity and getting back to the reasons we start our health businesses. I enjoyed his stories about the health professionals he has worked with, or seen as a patient and how they changed their lives/businesses to align closer with what they wanted in their lives.

Brian, thank you for your professionalism, enthusiasm, humour and contribution.

For the longest time I have loved watching crime shows on TV. Most people laugh (although they have good ratings – so I think some people are closet lovers of the genre). To combine with this, I have had this strange fantasy of robbing a bank. One day, right in the middle of final University exams, the phone rang. Ready for a break, I was delighted to hear my good friend, Gemma McGrath on the other end. “Do you want to do something stupid” she laughed. Without hesitation I said “Let’s rob a bank” a long silence followed (although she denies this, I think she was really considering the proposal) – “Well I suppose my suggestion is not that stupid afterall – I just wanted to go to Coffs” she said. We still laugh about the phone call, although the both of us are not that street smart (although she is more so than me) to even know where to start. However, if we were to be and did go ahead with it, one person who I wouldn’t like to interrogate me is Joe Navarro. In his book What every BODY is saying, Joe shows us his interrogation face and stance – very scary. I can tell you it makes me want to confess to every thing bad I have done since I was a toddler!

Funnily enough, when you meet Joe in person, he is the friendliest looking man. He smiles a lot and makes you feel comfortable straight away. After working for the FBI for twenty five years, Joe has refined his expertise in body language to a perfect art. He describes how he wished he had known what he does now when he was in the FBI. Now while he still consults to the FBI, rather than spending most of his time catching crims, he uses his skills to help others whether it be helping people win more poker games, identify psychopaths, identifying terrorists, enhance their career, be a better health professional or even become advanced body language reader.

Before I interviewed Joe, I thought most of my insights gained would be in the area of client behaviour and understanding what our patients are telling us with their non-verbal communication. However, I scored the jackpot with Joe not only sharing this wisdom, but also strategies to make patients feel more at ease, promote healing and enhance our effectiveness at getting our message across.

Joe described how it is not just our face that tells the story of our subconscious, he suggested we need to take into consideration the whole body including the feet, hands and where our torso faced.

After reading his book and studying the pictures I became more aware of what I was telling people with my body language and reminds me that my words must match my thoughts. Being conscious about my own non-verbal communication and observing others is something I need to practice. Joe suggests that trying to look at the whole body or taking it piece by piece may be successful strategies for different people. I think I’ll take it piece by piece when I study his new book, Louder than Words.

Joe, Thank you for being so generous with your experiences to help us as Health Professionals be better communicators.

I first met Lou Heckler when I saw him speak at our Sydney National Speakers Association of Australia chapter meeting. Funnily enough, it was the day I was informed that I had been successful in my Communication for Change grant application. His 45-minute keynote was like a blockbuster movie. Even if you wanted or had to leave for some reason, you remained – just in case you missed something.

When I had planed my trip to the US, I had immediately hoped that Lou would be available to be interviewed. I still remember sitting in his workshop with about 50 people, but feeling like he was talking to me, just like a one-to-one conversation. I remember feeling so drawn into his presentation, just like I was the character in his stories.

When we arrived in Gainsville Florida, a gorgeous sign “G’Day Mates” on Lou & Jonellen’s door greeted us. Immediately we felt welcome and like many of the other interviews like they were as happy to have us interview them as we were that they were available and interested in our project.

Lou had been in television for many years and had his own talk show – Together, which was live with no delay – a brave move, but one you could imagine would be like water off a ducks back to Lou.

I wanted to find out a little more about how he did what he has been so successful at doing in his 30-year span as a professional speaker. Lou was so generous with his answers, that it is no surprise he was the 2009 recipient of NSA’s Cavett award.

He gave us wonderful strategies about the importance of stories. Although we were speaking with respect to presenting to a group, as you’ll see on the video, stories can be used to effectively illustrate a point one to one. Lou worked his wonder within our interview, and even as we were driving to Tampa, numerous situations reminded us of the stories he gave as examples.

As my friends would know, I am trying to implement one strategy Lou suggested and that is to read more fiction books to increase my creativity. Obviously because I have been reading the books of the authors we have interviewed, I had not had a chance (and I have a little resistance that needs to be broken), so Helal and I were lucky enough to receive a book from Lou’s wife, Bestselling author Jonellen Heckler. I love mystery TV, so am looking forward to starting it on the flight back to Australia.

Thank you Lou & Jonellen, we very much enjoyed our time with you both within our interview and after generally chatting. You are an inspirational couple.

Sometimes when we go to make a decision, we can either do so too quickly, or become anxious about which is the right choice. In the most part, every choice has both positive and negative consequences. Suzy Welch, although she is quite well known for being the wife of former GE CEO Jack Welch, Suzy has achieved a lot in her own right. She is an acclaimed journalist, and was the editor for the Harvard Business Review; she is a sought after speaker – and in December ‘09 was on the front of Speaker magazine; she has the life experience of being a career woman and single mum of not one but four children and she shares her wisdom in a regular column in O magazine. She has also taught within business schools and has assisted in the development of the Jack Welch MBA. Now in 2010, Suzy authored 10-10-10, a book not about 2010, or anything about to happen in October but a lifestyle book about how we can transform our lives by using this formula. 10-10-10 follows her co-authorship of Winning with her husband Jack in 2002.

Since Suzy had been so generous to take time out to talk with us, I thought I would take advantage of this and ask her a few questions about her knowledge and experience in a range of areas.

Suzy discussed some tips on how we can use the 10-10-10 formula in our everyday lives when making decisions. Before we use the formula, we need to identify what our values are, as this will help determine which choice lines up with how we want to live our lives. The formula encourages a mindful discussion about how decisions will make a difference in our lives in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. The process is then relatively simple, as usually one of the insights into the future will make the right choice crystal clear.

Suzy also discussed how the 10-10-10 can be used to determine work-life choices and with others such as partners or children. Anxiety related to making a decision is usually difficult to reduce, but when we are clear of the likely consequences and are surer about our decision it can put us at ease.

I also asked Suzy to give us some tips on winning, although they may seem to be opposing ideas, if fact, winning could be about achieving your desired values and lifestyle. Finally, being a previous editor of Harvard Business Review, Suzy gave us a great tip to improve our writing “Be a human being, writing for human beings”.

Thank you Suzy, I enjoyed meeting you and learning from your experiences.

My Dad is a Financial Controller and has been for most of my life. He is therefore pretty good with money. He has taught me (although sometimes I don’t listen) about investments versus expenses, but is pretty good at not only identifying tangible investments, but intangible investments as well. From this, I know that shoes and rose gold jewelry are rarely investments but my third love – books may be. Where dad leans towards the saving side of the road, my mum leans towards the spending side of the road. Usually her spending isn’t on herself though, as she is very generous. For mum and I, we are lucky we have dad to keep us on track or we’d both be in a bit of trouble!

After speaking to Helen Kim, I now realize that my relationship with money is influenced by both of my parents. Helen told me that sometimes you follow what your parents’ do, or do the complete opposite.

Helen’s approach to money reminds me of the approach I have as a Dietitian. She discussed that when we overspend (like overeat or undereat), it may not be for the reasons we think. Overspending could be a sign of a range of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, loneliness and the list goes on. She encourages all of us to identify why we are buying something and whether this is an appropriate purchase or way to express the emotion or distress we want to relieve.

Helen spoke about under-earning and provided useful tips about how we can increase our earning capacity. Helen is a Julliard trained cellist and has had to deal with the starving artist syndrome of many of her colleagues. She described that if someone had a good relationship with money, they will find ways to increase their earning capacity. We can also learn this, she is developing a program – Understanding Under-earning.

During our interview Helen was great (in fact even after the interview she continued to give us great advice that I wish I had caught on film!). She gave practical tips of how to escape the money sabotages that we all can fall victim too. I must admit, I usually find talking about money a little boring, but speaking with Helen was fun and her strategies achievable.

For example, this year one of my resolutions is to pay less stupidity tax (fines, rebooking fees, double purchasing due to forgetting something, last minute premiums). I haven’t gone very well so far with a parking ticket at Harvard and numerous flight changes, but by using one of Helen’s tips and writing these all down in a notebook (hopefully I won’t have to carry it around with me because there will be less of them) I already feel more in control.

Thank you Helen! It was great to meet you and get some money relationship advice for me and our viewers!

One person who is already achieving doing great things for the Healthcare industry is Mark Hurst. He is the founder of the GEL (Good Experience Live) conferences and has now included a health conference. Here quality speakers speak about their experiences as well as discuss strategies to improve the customer experience when engaged in the using healthcare services.

Mark is passionate about getting the customer experience right from their first contact with you (such as a website or referrer) to their post purchasing experience. He advocates and provides tools to get to know your customer better, and therefore satisfy their needs. He describes the difference between customer service and the customer experience and you can tell that he truly believes in helping companies and people understand the customer experience better.

One way that can really reduce the customer experience is if the practitioner is overwhelmed by information overload. With so many forms of information out there with the electronic media adding to the traditional media, health professionals have a lot more than the piling up of journals in the corner of their office. Social media sites, blogs, online news, newspapers, magazines, journals – and we haven’t even started to think about emails, text messages and phone calls. Mark has endeavoured to make this easier for people by writing Bit Literacy, a book which discusses productivity in the digital age with tools to stay informed and choosing where your information comes from.

Within his book, on his blog and in our interview, Mark gives some interesting strategies to keep on top of our communications and what Mark calls our Media Diet. He advocates for a clean inbox, but also provides advice on how we can do this and other strategies for keeping up with the latest information without getting overwhelmed.

Thank you Mark for the insights. It was wonderful to interview you, and thanks for your work you are doing for our industry, I hope to make it to one of your GEL conferences in the future.

When I first started my business I was really excited. I would work in it non stop, most nights staying up until the early morning. If I didn’t have clients, I spent time writing resources for my patients, networking and researching how I could make my business better.

I wanted to make a difference in my industry. I wanted clients to feel valued and enjoy the experience of seeing a dietitian rather than simply being educated. I wanted to make a difference in the world – one client at a time.

After a while, there were no breaks, back –to-back client appointments, admin work piled on my desk and a waiting list that spanned months. I was stressed and I always felt poor regardless of how much money I was earning, which made me continue doing what I was doing and filling each week with over 100 patients. But, I was going in the wrong direction. I had lost touch with the little things that were important for me and important for aligning my business identity with my values.

Everyday Howard Mann works with small business owners who are in the same situation that I was in – Those who are too busy working in the business rather than on it. Granted many health professionals still want to see clients. I miss my clients dearly and not an hour goes past where I don’t think about how one of them is going (Luckily I have a great team and they keep me updated). Howard describes the situation as where we have forgotten the basics of business and the reasons why we started the business in the first place.

Howard’s book – The business brickyard describes how we can put the fun back into our businesses. To me, I thought the title meant that we go back to the foundations, but in fact it relates to Howard’s college football team. They had just brought in a new coach to try to end their losing streak. After winning the first three games with the new coach, they lost a game. They didn’t lose because the other team was better, but because they forgot the simple basics, focusing on tricks and fancy moves rather then remembering they needed to do the basics such as, catch the ball first. So the coach sent them to do a practice drill called the Brickyard. They tossed a brick back and forth to each other. If you didn’t focus on just the basics of catching that brick, it would hurt.

Howard’s book is really attractive with thick paper and a wonderful design. It is small in size. His purpose being that he wants his readers to be able to remember what they learnt at the start of the book when they get to the end.

Howard was not only generous within our interview, providing wonderful tips for our viewers, he also puts his book linked on his blog for free!

Howard, Thank you for sharing with us the practicalities to get our businesses back on track and to have fun doing our wonderful jobs of helping people!

All Health Care Systems have issues whether they are user paid, socialised or otherwise. At Cornell University, they are trying to make positive inroads to improving the Health Care System in the US as well as a few European countries (such as Ireland). Yesterday I met with Peter Lazes who heads up the Healthcare Transformation Project and is organising a working conference for Healthcare practitioners, Academics, Policy Makers and Administrators to collaborate and share ideas for a better future.

Peter was a great person to interview. He understood his topic really well and has been working with management teams and practitioners in hospitals and aged care settings for a long time. I also liked how opinionated Peter was about changes that need to be made and where our attention needs to focus. I suppose it helps when his opinions align with mine, but Peter has also done the research and had the experience to back up his claims.

Peter shared with me the reasons why we need to take a better approach to management, change management and running the business side of Healthcare Organisations. He also showed me how good management results in good patient outcomes.

Peter was also passionate about education, re-education and continual education. He warned though that it is something that we can control. He gave us the following advice for a more successful Healthcare System

1. We need to take responsibility for our own training if we want to manage a department or organisation.
2. Universities should include some business/management training in qualifying practitioner programs.
3. Governments should support programs to improve Management and Leadership skills and knowledge within the Healthcare System.

Cornell ILR department is sponsoring an International Conference for Health Care Delivery System Reform and Implications for the Workforce in May 2010. The conference will attract a range of people from practitioners to Union representatives and policy makers.

Peter thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us!

When I started my career, I was pretty good at getting my name out there using traditional media. Scoring a weekly column in the newspaper and semi-regular gigs on the local news did wonders for my business and practice. It wasn’t easy, but with a strategy and offering something of value, I found that initially I didn’t need to pay for expensive advertising and my profile increased in Cairns and Far North Queensland and my reputation could be built from that.

When you have done this relatively well, it takes a big kick in the side to change. The kick for me was reading David Meerman Scott’s book – World Wide Rave. To be honest, I initially picked it up because I liked the uniqueness of size and the care and effort which had gone into the book. To me, if a book is presented on nice paper with great graphics and good quality, it tells me that there is pride in the words that mark the paper, the next thing to having the paper marked with the authors pen and personal hand writing. But the book had some great stories that challenged my beliefs at the core. These challenges forced me to read his previous book, The New Rules for Marketing and PR – oh how much I hate rules – but I had to read it. It has just been released in the 2nd edition (I haven’t had time to check for changes – but being signed, it will be in my ‘prized’ bookshelf, so has to be read). Dave not only has some great ideas, but they require little money compared with expensive advertising and he provides practical tips so those who read his book or watch our interview actually know how to do it.

Interviewing Dave was easy, it was just like we met at a social occasion rather than worrying that cameras were rolling. Funnily enough this is exactly how Dave described social networking – like a cocktail party. I have just started in the social networking arena. I have always been active on my facebook page with my friends, but never have targeted this towards getting more information out there, increasing my network of people that I engage with, or to meet new people with different ideas. Being a scientist, I do prefer peer-reviewed research that backs up people’s opinion, so I have previously been a bit hesitant to engage. But, one week down, I am still enjoying meeting new people on twitter and getting links to interesting stories or seeing great posts on blogs. It just widens my view on the world a little further – but does interrupt my reading habit a little. Obviously I am still journaling the development of the Healthy Private Practice series, and emails from my followers to ask who I interviewed here and there keeps me on my toes to make sure I document the journey.

Dave’s pretty easy to find on the net if you google him or his work, but if you get stuck, you can follow him on twitter @dmscott or his blog. After following him for a little while he has given me some ideas. He has also helped me realise that competence and presence in social media may well be required if we want to be influential in our field, write books, or have a traditional media profile. Very interesting.

Dave gave some fantastic insights into PR and marketing on the web. I LOVE his non-sales approach, I must admit I hate being sold to (although if it is a great book, unique pair of shoes or antique rose gold jewellery – go ahead) and cringe every time someone sends me a twitter DM – “how may I help you”, or a “personalized” piece of spam email. This isn’t Dave’s approach; he is a soft seller (he didn’t even really want his books in frame during our interview) and genuinely wants to help people achieve their goals and understand what he is an expert in. A couple of things I took out of chatting with him were:

1. It is normal to feel weird when you start in social media
2. Give people something of value (information they can use, not about your products or services)
3. Remove barriers for people to get information (ie., no sign in or logins) – like his free stuff!
4. Have fun with it!

Thank you Dave, you gave me, and I am sure many of our future viewers lots to think about when it comes to effective PR in today’s environment.

If anyone has any comments about what they have seen health professionals do on the web, would love you to comment and share with us all.

It is one thing to be super influential in your field, but another completely to be influential across a magnitude of fields. Professor Howard Gardner is one of those people; he is a leader in education, psychology and management. For everyone I have told about my interviews, Howard Gardner was commonly followed by “wow, he’s amazing”. I thought it was only the psychology nerds like me that thought he was inspirational – apparently not, and for good reason.

Like many of the people I have asked, I was surprised that he accepted the invitation to be interviewed, and was nervous about meeting him. His classic Multiple Intelligences theory outlined in his book Frames of Mind, just after I was born and is still a must read today.  His theory was one of the first to recognize that a singular general measure can not explain intelligence and simply being book smart was not the only attribute required for success or for a person to reach their potential.

Professor Gardner was very humble about what he had achieved and how he had helped change how people thought about intelligence.  When you see his office you would be excused if you thought that the one bookcase to the side of the room was a general one, it is only as you get closer and realize that all of the books are written or edited by him that the magnitude of the work that this man has produced sinks in. His books include a recent one – 5 minds for the future where Howard identifies 5 minds (or traits) that he believes are essential for future. It is an interesting read and during our interview he particularly focused on the ethical and respectful minds and how the lack of those minds in the world and in us individually will not be of benefit to human kind. Being a dietitian by trade, with a degree in psychology, I see the link and wonder whether in his next book, Howard would address the role of the Healthy Mind for the future, but I am sure everyone with a particular expertise has suggested his or her biases to him.

When you spoke to Howard Gardner, you immediately felt that he lived the principle of respect that he preaches and he genuinely wants the world to progress towards the benefit of humanity. He was incredibly media savvy; you could tell he had done this numerous times. The only thing I found difficult was that I wanted to speak to him about everything he had written. Easy if you have one book, a little harder if you have twenty four.

In the end we spoke about his thoughts presented in Frames of Mind, 5 minds for the Future, Responsibility at Work, Changing Minds, the Disciplined Mind and Changing Minds. We also talked generally what we can do as managers to promote the desired minds in our workplaces. We also discussed how his principles could be used in our practices when helping our clients.

Some things that I took away from our discussion:

1. Modeling is the key. Do as you would like others to do.
2. Think about the good of the whole as well as the good for yourself.
3. You control your behaviours whether you are in a positive or negative environment.
4. Sustainable change takes time and some people may not be changeable in certain areas.

Thank you Professor Gardner for sharing your time, experience and knowledge with me and our viewers.